Concentrating solar power first emerged on the renewable energy field just a few years ago, and critics were quick to go on the attack. Nevertheless, fans of the technology forged ahead. Now all that hard work is about to pay off, and the EV battery supply chain could be a beneficiary.
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The Concentrating Solar Power Advantage
As the name suggests, concentrating solar power systems collect solar energy that reflects from fields of specialized mirrors called heliostats, or from long, curved metal structures called parabolic troughs. The reflected energy is concentrated on a specialized oil, molten salt, or other transportable medium, to generate high heat for use in running various industrial processes.
Generating steam to run a power plant is the primary use case for concentrating solar power, which raises the question of why not simply use solar panels to generate electricity. That’s a good question. The answer is that the transportation medium in a concentrating solar power system also doubles as an energy storage medium.
All else being equal, a concentrating solar power system could store enough solar energy to tide itself over for night-time hours, and coordinate with other renewable energy systems to deliver electricity on same 24/7 capability expected of fossil and nuclear power plants.
While the Obama administration promoted next-generation nuclear technology, it also counted on concentrating solar power to showcase the ability of US innovators to push the renewable energy envelope into 24/7 territory.
At the time, critics charged that concentrating solar power systems were too expensive and complex, but the prize of 24/7 dispatchability was a tempting one back then, and now Russia’s homicidal rampage through Ukraine has raised giant new red flags over the security risks inherent in both fossil and nuclear energy systems.
Nuclear Energy vs. Concentrating Solar Power
In particular, Russia’s attack on nuclear facilities in Ukraine demonstrates how easy it can be for one rogue nation to threaten an entire continent with widespread disaster. The unprovoked war has undercut the argument that nuclear energy should play a vital role in rapid global decarbonization.
The nuclear argument had gained force as the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change took shape, with top US investor Bill Gates leading a pack of A-list financiers in the newly hatched Breakthrough Energy Coalition and its sister firm, Breakthrough Energy Ventures.
Breakthrough’s focus on nuclear energy is no surprise, considering that Gates is also a backer of the nuclear firm TerraPower. However, in tune with Breakthrough’s broader mission of energy innovation, Gates was also an early backer of the concentrating solar power startup Heliogen.
So, how …….
Source: https://cleantechnica.com/2022/03/13/its-a-new-dawn-for-concentrating-solar-power/